Serpentine road the new Hwy. 3 (con't)

According to Parkway construction officials Huron Church and Talbot roads south of the existing E.C. Row Expressway will be demolished to make way for the new four-lane service road.

Typically service roads run parallel to the major freeway with two lanes in either direction on the corresponding sides of the highway.

Not so in this case, officials say.

In fact, this service road will be one separate highway that will be an entity unto itself.

Nor will the highway be straight.

Its lanes will swing back and forth across and over the Parkway.

Cindy Prince, the communications manager for Parkway Infrastructure Constructors (PIC), the joint venture designing and building the entire project, said this serpentine road serves at least a couple of functions.

First, unlike the Parkway it will be at grade.

That means it will have more immediate impact on the nearby neighourhoods.

“Hwy. 3 is a surface road so it’s at grade and to put it on just one side or another wouldn’t have been thought to be fair and it would have loaded all of the impact of that road on one side or the other,” she said.

Second, the design keeps with the desire for an esthetically-pleasing highway corridor.

For example, the 11 tunnels over the Parkway will be planted with natural vegetation.

And the sweeping pattern of the service road – to be known as simply Hwy. 3 – will sweep back and forth as part of an enhanced visual landscape.

“So in part what it does, it crosses over the Hwy 401 (the Parkway) submerged part of the system from time to time and I think it makes for a much more interesting traffic pattern and it allows us to do much more interesting things from a landscaping-design perspective,” she said.

(The artist rendering above shows the sweeping nature of the road.)

The new highway will continue to have some access to surface streets at key intersections but will no longer have the private driveways that currently exist along the corridor.

Of course, that part of Hwy. 3 north of the E.C. Row will remain the straight highway it now is.

That’s because the Parkway will turn left south of the Expressway as it winds its way to the new Ojibway bridge site.

In other Parkway news:

- It’s been decided that the plants of the Carolinian forest will be the design or motif on concrete retainer walls, sound barriers and on Parkway overpasses. Rejected themes were Motor City and Rose City.

- Three pedestrian bridges will no longer be overpasses but well-lit tunnels. Engineering-design lead Philip Murray said neighbours “were getting concerned with the height of those over and above their residence.”

- During construction the present Huron Church-Talbot Rd. thoroughfare will be interrupted by a series of diversion loops as various tunnels and bridges are built for the Parkway project. But these diversion roads – which will not be detours – will be of the “same standard” as the current highway.

WindsorOntarioNews.com

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